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Sunday, April 13, 2014

Can you Hear the Hosannas

Do We Hear the ‘Hosanna’s’?
(Matthew 21:1-17)

Sunday, April 13, 2014 – Palm
Sunday

Shane Claiborne is a writer,
activist, speaker, and prophet who lives in an intentional community called the
Simple Way in a Philadelphia neighborhood populated by addicts and dealers. Children often go unsupervised. There is violence. Claiborne writes that whenever a fight breaks
out near his house, he runs outside with torches. He stands down the street from the rumble juggling
the torches like clown. He writes,
“Perhaps kids will lose interest in the noise of a good fight and move toward
the other end of the block to watch the circus.
I truly believe,” Claiborne says, “we can overcome the darkness of this
world by shining something brighter and more beautiful.”[i]

Fights are so common where he lives
that he has a ready-made response, a beautiful response. Give them something fun and whimsical to see
instead of violence. Provide a happy alternative
to the corruption.

I may not ever see two people
beating each other with fists and sticks and knives on the street where I live,
but the world is soaked in sin and sin always leads to violence and death. Cain always ends up killing Abel. Sometimes the pathway to violence is
indirect. We don’t see the bloodshed but,
the wage of sin is death, Romans 6:23.
And sin is everywhere.

Claiborne’s attempt to divert
attention away from the street fight by providing a circus shows in a playful way
the serious alternative to a cycle of death that Jesus offered in the temple. Jesus declared there is another way, a way
that’s different and better than the way of violence and death.

Every year on the Sunday before Easter, Palm Sunday, we see Jesus
praised on his ride into Jerusalem. We
watch him explode in righteous fury, driving animals out of the temple. Matthew’s version of these events describes
four definite actions of Jesus. He rides
into town as a king, passes judgment on the temple as a prophet, heals in a way
that only God can, and receives worship, as only God should.

In the Old Testament, the book of 2nd Kings, chapter 9,
Jehu is anointed by a prophet of God to be Israel’s next king. Jehu and his men must get rid of the wicked
King Ahab. As he announces to his
friends what God has said and what they must do, they hastily spread their
cloaks before him, blow a trumpet, and shout “Jehu” is king (9:13).

The crowd in Matthew 21 remembers the cloaks laid before Jehu as
they reenact the impromptu coronation, laying their cloaks before Jesus. The people hope he is will be the king of
Israel. UCC minister Nancy Rockwell
suggests more than simply declaring the reign of Jesus, this is
revolutionary. It is an affront to King
Herod the puppet monarch who answers to Rome.

More significantly, it is a blatant rejection of the Roman
Emperor. Rockwell cites a book called The Last Week by Borg and Crossan[ii]
that proposes that there was another procession the same day Jesus rode into
Jerusalem. While he came into town to
cries of “Hosanna,” while riding an animal of peace, a donkey, Roman Governor
Pilate processed into another part of town with a legion of soldiers on horses
for the sole purpose of making a show of Roman force. This was to discourage any potential
rebellion. Pilate had no idea how
mistaken he was. Even as he flexed the
muscle of empire, the disciples acted out the kingship of Jesus.

Besides king, Jesus played the role of prophet. The whole temple incident of turning over
tables was a declaration of judgment. In
the Old Testament, the prophets do odd things to get their message across. Jeremiah had a jar of rotting undergarments
that symbolized the way pride had ruined Judah (Jer. 13:9). Hosea had to marry a prostitute to illustrate
how God would continuously take the nation back in spite of her
infidelities. These are just a few of
many examples of how prophets sometimes used bizarre behavior to communicate
the word of God.

Jesus did not cleanse the temple as this incident is sometimes described. Something that’s be cleaned can be used again. He rendered judgment. The temple would no longer be the heart of
God’s activity with people. It was a den
of thieves. That phrase means that
robbers – the religious establishment in Jesus eyes – felt like no harm would
come to them in God’s temple. They could
get rich through dishonest means there in the house of prayer where people met
God. They felt their hold on the system
made them safe. They did not fear God. Jesus’s violent acts, turning over tables,
driving out animals, signaled the judgment that would be rendered when he died
on the cross.

He came in as a king. He
spoke as a prophet. And he received
worship. The people cried, “Hosanna,” a
phrase from Psalm 118, verse 25, and it literally means, “Save us now, O
Lord.” We say this say to God when we
are desperate. Pinched between corrupt
priests, Pharisees who laid a heavy load of legalism, the evil of Herod, and
the oppression of Rome, the people were powerless. They had nowhere to turn, so they turned to
Jesus. They invoked royal Psalms and
words reserved for God alone and lifted those words upon Jesus’ arrival.

And Jesus accepted it all.
In this passage, our Palm Sunday reading, Jesus acted out what he truly
was – prophet, king, and God. The
highest roles for ancient Israelites were prophet, priest and king. Jesus was prophet and king, and the book of
Hebrews over and over confirms what Matthew says implicitly – he was the
supreme priest. A priest is to stand
between a human, marked by the profanity of sin, and the most Holy God. Jesus was both fully human and fully God, so
he was uniquely qualified to bring Heaven to Earth. As we see in Revelation, Heaven and earth are
joined in Christ as intimately as a bride and groom (Rev. 21).

What does this look like, in practical terms? The Gospel of Matthew describes what Jesus
did in the temple to show him to be who we believe him to be – Lord, Savior,
King, God. To get a sense of this, we
need to do two things – remember, and look around and listen.

First, remember.
Specifically, we turn back in Matthew’s gospel to earlier in the story,
chapter 11. Jesus’ cousin John, called
John the Baptist, was a prophet. He
called the nation of Israel to repentance.
He baptized people to show that they were cleansed of their sins. He baptized Jesus.

John preached without a filter.
So when Herod married his brother’s wife, John condemned the
marriage. Herod, the king of the Jews
received his power from the Roman governor.
At any time, Pilate could oust Herod and have him killed. Compared to other Jews, Herod was powerful
and wealthy, but he was a puppet on the end of a Roman string. Thus he was paranoid.

The fury and directness of John’s preaching infuriated the
impotent monarch, so he had John imprisoned.
And John wasted away in Herod’s prison many months. His energy waned. He could not preach. He did know what happened with Jesus after
the baptism. He had done his part in
God’s plan, but in prison, he fell into depression. So, his disciples, who were allowed to visit,
came and he sent them to Jesus.

There question to Jesus from John was, “Are you the one who is to
come or are we to wait for another?”

Jesus responded, “The blind receive their sight and the lame walk;
the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have
good news brought to them” (11:3-5). The blind receive their sight. The lame are made able to walk.

These things would happen when the Messiah came. These things were happening. Jesus must be who John thought he was. Now it is Palm Sunday. A lot happened in Matthew’s gospel between
that conversation with Jesus and John’s disciples, and the ride into Jerusalem
that ended with disruption of temple money-changing tables. But Matthew wants us, the readers to
remember. How can we know Jesus is from
God? The
blind receive their sight. The lame are
made able to walk. The dead are raised.

Matthew tells about Jesus riding in as a king, judging as a
prophet, and receiving worship as God.
Then, in verse 14 it says, “The blind and lame came to him at the temple
and he cured them.” God is acting in history,
changing everything, and the gatekeepers, the temple leaders do not like it at
all.

Matthew writes that they became angry. After the excitement of the procession and
the turning over of tables, and after the healing miracles, a confrontation between
Jesus and the priests ensued. There may
have been 1000 adults in the temple area and they would be fascinated by an
open confrontation between the high priest and the Galilean carpenter. They would do what you or I would do if two
people in public began arguing. They would
stop to gawk.

Someone forgot to tell the children in the temple’s out court that
the party had ended. They kids kept
singing the song – the song for Jesus.
“Hosanna to the son of David.” Save us now, O Lord. And he was doing exactly that.

But the chief priests did not want to be saved. Remember, den
of thieves, the place where the criminals feel safe? The temple leaders, like Herod, were under
the heel of Rome, but they enjoyed status.
They may have been enslaved by Rome, but they were the rich slaves. They did not need Jesus disrupting things,
taking away their privileged position, bringing punishment on them. They had no faith that he was of God and
could bring freedom and new life.

They saw the miracles and did not rejoice. They heard the singing and did not join
in. “Do you hear what these [children]
are saying?” The chief priests demanded (Mt. 21:16). Yes, said, Jesus. He quoted Psalm 8 to show that the children
and anyone else who sang praise songs to him were the ones with understanding
and the ones receiving the blessing God had sent.

We’re trying to see and understand who Jesus is – Lord, Savior,
God, King. So we remember. We know it is the Messiah of God when the blind receive their sight. The lame are made able to walk. The dead are raised. Matthew tells of the healings in the
temple that day. The final act would
come a week later when Jesus left the grave behind.

I mentioned that we needed to do two things to understand
Jesus. First, we needed to remember and
we have looked back to John the Baptist and we have remembered. This Thursday, we will wash feet and take
communion and we will remember. This
Friday, we will tell the story of the cross and remember. Next Sunday, we will see the sun rise and
joyously, victoriously remember.

The second thing we need to do is look around and listen. We see and hear Jesus when we hear the
children singing “Hosanna – Lord, save us now.”
The Hosanna cry comes from people who need to be saved. Who needs to be saved? Children in households where they are
neglected and abused; they need Jesus.
“Hosanna – Lord, save us now.”
Who needs to be saved? Addicts –
alcoholics, gambling addicts, porn addicts; you name it. Addiction cannot be overcome without God’s
help. “Hosanna – Lord, save us
now.” Who needs to be saved? People locked in poverty, trapped with no
hope of escape. They go to bed each
night not knowing if they will eat the next day; not knowing where they will
sleep the next night. “Hosanna – Lord,
save us now.” Who needs to be saved? People in the path of war need to be saved;
Syrians, Iraqis, Pakistanis, Afghans.
“Hosanna – Lord, save us now.”

Of course it is obvious that people in these situations need
help. It appears unrelated to the events
of Palm Sunday. Palm Sunday is supposed
to take us into Holy Week and Holy Week culminates on Easter Sunday when we
celebrate Jesus’ death for our sins and resurrection victory over death. This is supposed to be spiritual and
triumphant. Why bring all these
political and social justice matters into the conversation? Domestic violence, addiction, hunger and
poverty, war – how do these thorny issues worm their way into a nice Palm
Sunday celebration?

On that day, Jesus declared the end of a religious institution –
temple worship. In the new way, the way
of Jesus, People would come to him in order to come to God. On that day, Jesus upended hierarchical
systems. In the new way, the way of
Jesus, religious leaders are servants who walk with people instead of lording
over them. On that day, Jesus healed
diseases like blindness because he loves people and abhors our suffering and
also because his healing was and is a sign of who he is – Lord, Savior, God,
and king.

All of this is political.
All of this is justice and compassion, especially for the most down and
out around us. We hear the children’s
song, the “Hosanna!” when we go to where the hurting people are.

We also hear it when we listen to brokenness in our own hearts and
realize how desperately we need Jesus.
Until we hear the children singing for us, we will not really see
Jesus.

“Do you hear what these [children] are saying?” The chief priests asked it indignantly. We need to ask it innocently and humbly. Do we hear the children? Are we seeking Jesus, singing “Hosanna!”
begging him to save us? He gives us a
choice. We gather with the bloodthirsty
crowd and watch the street fight and by watching and encouraging the combatants
we are as guilty of the violence as they are.

Or, we can take the Jesus alternative, the one where blind people
are healed, the broken mended, and the lame made able to walk. We can pray, “Hosanna! Lord save us.” We can pray it because God hears it and will
answer and has answered in Jesus, his come, his death, and his
resurrection. His is the way of life and
beckons us to it.